I listened in much of yesterday while Intel webcast its investor day from company headquarters in Santa Clara.

Here are some highlights:

View full sizeProfits: Intel's profit margins have been climbing substantially, and when the company reported Q1 results it said gross margins would climb to 64 percent in 2010. That's well above the company's historic range, between 50 and 60 percent. Analysts have told me they thought this a temporary phenomenon, triggered by a macroeconomic recovery that coincides with a new class of microprocessor from Intel. However, the company said yesterday that it expects margins will be above 55 percent indefinitely. CEO Paul Otellini and CFO Stacy Smith said that improvements in Intel's design and manufacturing process, coupled with rapidly growing sales to Asia, have created a highly profitable mix for the company.

View full sizeGrowth: Intel insisted yesterday that computing remains a growth industry, even as the desktop PC matures. Intel pointed to rising sales from Asia, as well as new categories of device -- tablets and netbooks in particular. This will be challenging for Intel, though, because netbook growth has shown signs of leveling off, while Intel doesn't have a place in Apple's iPad or on rival tablet devices to be built around Google's Android operating system.

Software: That's the challenge faced by Oregon's Renee James, who leads Intel's software group. Yesterday, she gave a rundown of Intel's efforts to bring its low-powered processor, Atom, to a range of new devices from smartphones to tablets to smart TVs. Specifically, she said that Intel's mobile operating system MeeGo would be on smartphones in the second half of the year and that a version of Google's Android OS will run on Atom, too, this year. Other Intel execs showed off Atom processors on a range of tablets and smartphones, but made no new product announcements.

Manufacturing: Oregon's Andy Bryant, who now runs Intel's technology and manufacturing group, explained that Intel's fabs -- which once became obsolete within several years -- can now remain cutting edge for up to two decades. Intel is also re-using tools from prior technology generations, reducing startup costs for each new generation of processor. Analysts asked when Intel might move to 450mm silicon wafers, which are larger and more efficient. Bryant responded "the sooner the better," but said that Intel is dependent on other big chip manufacturers -- namely Samsung -- moving, too, so that tool manufacturers have an incentive to convert to the larger wafer sizes. Intel execs have told me in the past that the switch is likely to happen after the middle of this decade, and that 450mm is the most likely trigger for a new, multibillion-dollar research fab in Hillsboro.